What They Meant for Evil

Starred review from July 1, 2019
“War never brings healing,” writes Deng, one of 89 “Lost Girls of Sudan” and an international speaker, in this affecting debut memoir. At six years old, Deng’s home was attacked by marauders, and she was forced to flee, an escape she recounts in harrowing, riveting detail. Then, in the mid-1990s, living in a stultifying refugee camp with meager food, chronic depression, and constant violence, Deng found hope and fellowship with a makeshift church. After eight years in the camp, she was given the opportunity to move to the U.S. in 2000, but just two days before her departure she was raped by a man in the camp. She forged forward nonetheless, more excited than ever to be leaving after learning that her foster parents went to church. Once in America, Deng learned she was pregnant and, at first, felt a deep sadness. In the end, though, she writes that her love for the baby “made it possible for me to begin to forgive” the man who raped her. She adds, “What brings healing is honoring the pain, acknowledging its impact, trusting God to secure lasting justice, and forgiving those who have caused our suffering.” Her gripping account attests to the power of faith and forgiveness to transform suffering into love.

July 15, 2019
A memoir from one of the Lost Girls of Sudan. Deng was born in South Sudan, and the first few years of her life were relatively peaceful. She enjoyed her grandmother's cooking, the ghee she made from the cows they owned, and the lush vegetation that grew around her village. When she was 6, the civil war that had been raging in other parts of the country arrived at her doorstep, and Deng became a refugee of the Bor Massacre of 1991. Her village was destroyed, and she fled on foot with other family members to safety. She spent the next few years living in refugee camps, eating tasteless maize paste donated by the U.N. It was difficult to find joy under these circumstances, but Deng's strong Christian faith and community of churchgoers she prayed with helped her through her struggles. She also was able to attend school in the refugee camp, an act that ultimately led her on a path to the United States, where she was adopted in 2000 by a family living in Michigan. In this chronicle of her early childhood and subsequent years as an immigrant in the U.S., Deng shares, in mostly straightforward prose, the significant moments that changed her life. Not only did she suffer deprivation and hardship as a young child in the refugee camps; she also faced prejudice as an immigrant, struggling to maintain her Dinka heritage while assimilating to her new culture. Her difficult journey to adulthood and calling as an advocate for other victims of war makes for difficult, sometimes violent reading, but her story is important. In particular, Deng exposes the devastation of war on the innocent, especially women and children, who often bear the brunt of the brutality. A powerful story of determination and strong faith that brought a child out of the wreckage of war.

COPYRIGHT(2019) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.